The decisive battle flag is also known as the "Destroy the enemy at sight and be invincible in battle" flag. Black characters on a red background slowly rose to the top of the mast of Wuhan Fu, slowly fluttering in the breeze of the Malacca Strait. This was the signal for the decisive battle!
"Raise the battle flag! Prepare the nail-head bullets!"
The captains of every Ming warship following the Wuhanfu issued the same order when they saw the decisive battle flag. Subsequently, a shrill bell rang on every battleship. This was the sound of a battle alarm, which meant that the battle had begun!
Everyone must work hard and fulfill their duties!
The superior Tianli seemed to have sensed the fighting will of these Ming navy warriors. The originally gentle southwesterly wind also suddenly strengthened, as if it wanted the two fleets sailing face to face to meet as soon as possible.
"Report! The enemy fleet is ten thousand yards away!"
When the observer on the Sealand Provincial Council shouted ten thousand yards, Tropp and David Jones could already see the Ming Dynasty fleet array with their naked eyes.
The fleet of the Ming Dynasty arranged two parallel columns, one of which was in front and consisted of five small galleys. It was a guard column whose task was to resist the enemy's arson ships - that is, when they were far away from the main formation. , just use arson bombs to set them on fire.
The rear row is the main column of the Chinese, with 11 warships arranged in sequence, the big ones in front and the small ones in the back, heading towards the Dutch fleet at full speed.
It is said to be at full speed, but the wind force on the Strait of Malacca is limited after all, it is only six or seven knots.
"They should turn right at a distance of 1,000 to 1,500 yards from us, seize the T position or keep sailing in the same direction as us and conduct battle line bombardment."
Even with his eyes closed, Davy Jones knew how his opponent would fight - it was stipulated in the "Battle Instructions" that the Ming army's warship fleet was performing escort missions, so it could not sail past each other in opposite directions with the Dutch fleet, otherwise The landing fleet in Temasek Island and the Straits of Johor will suffer.
"How should we fight?" Tropp asked.
"Using split tactics," said David Jones, "the Sealand Division is in the same direction as the enemy, the Seventh Province Division passes directly through their sixth and seventh ships, and the Holland Province Division is outflanked from behind."
"When will the division begin?" Tropp rarely became the commander-in-chief - who made his deputy know the Ming Dynasty navy too well?
David Jones said: "We can start when both sides turn... We can turn first and let them follow, so that we can complete the turn ahead of them. After completing the turn, both sides will become sailing with the wind. I The sails of Fang ships have a larger area and faster speed. If they sail at full speed, they should be easy to cut off. According to the "Combat Instructions" of the Ming Dynasty Navy, once the array is cut off, the cut off part will adopt chaos tactics. We use two detachments to surround five of their ships, and we should win quickly.
After the victory, the two detachments immediately turned southeast to search for the enemy's second battleship detachment and landing detachment! "
A teacher is a teacher after all. With his eyes closed, he can guess the students' plans to the best of his ability. Yes, I guessed 80% or 90% of the time, still a little bit off.
This is because the Ming Dynasty fleet turned earlier. It did not turn 1000-1500 yards away from the Zeeland Provincial Council, but turned 2500 yards away.
The reason for the early turn was that after the emergence of nail-head bullets, the Ming Navy switched to medium-caliber long guns instead of large-caliber short guns. The long cannon has a longer effective range and more equipment, so it can engage the enemy at a longer distance.
"Damn it, why did you turn ahead of time?" David Jones found out that his prediction failed, and he was a little annoyed? Who is directing this? How did this person pass the exam? Failed!
Could it be that without Dutch instructors, the level of Chinese naval training and officer education has plummeted?
"It doesn't matter, let's just follow them. Our number of ships is almost three times theirs, and the tonnage of the main fleet is larger, and the number of heavy artillery must be more... so long-distance firing is beneficial to us! "
Tropp was not angry. The one who "failed" was not his student. Why was he angry? And now the ratio of warships (not counting light ships) on both sides on the sea is 32 to 11, which is an overwhelming advantage! So no matter how hard you fight, you will definitely win...the question now is just how much will you lose?
Under Tropp's order, the Dutch fleet also began to turn to the left under the leadership of the Zeeland Provincial Assembly. When the turn began, the distance between the Zeeland Provincial and the Wuhanfu was about 2,000 yards, that is, More than 1800 meters. But in the process of completing the turn, the distance between the two warships further narrowed to more than 1,000 yards.
At this time, the two sides did not remain parallel, but were gradually approaching. At 4 p.m., when the distance between the two sides narrowed to within 1,000 yards, the first gun on the port side of the Yingtianfu roared, firing the first gun in history. A nail-headed bullet used in actual combat!
The roaring naval guns were like a signal, kicking off the battle in the Malacca Sea that would determine the ownership of the entire Pacific hegemony!
Because of the emergence of isolated gun cabins, it is difficult for today's battleships to conduct unified bombardment. Before the bombardment begins, the doors of each gun cabin must be closed to prevent the fire from spreading and exploding ammunition. Therefore, each gun squad can only fight independently. However, in order to facilitate command, the No. 1 gun cabin of each battleship, which is the first gun cabin from the bow, will be responsible for the "opening shot", that is, from the battleship The gunnery commander received the order and fired the first shell.
Two or three minutes after the first shot is fired, the rest of the artillery on the enemy side of the battleship will fire one after another - the explosive ammunition using a wooden tube fuse cannot be loaded into the gun barrel early before firing, as it will explode. ! Therefore, the remaining guns on the enemy side of the battleship can only light the fuses after the first shot is fired, and then start loading operations, so there is no need to think about salvos or anything like that.
And each gun works independently, which is a great test of the gunner's sighting quality... If it were not for the 15-pound long gun, the sighting level of the Ming Dynasty navy gunner (in fact, it is not low, but it is not the same as that of the Netherlands) Derby), there is no suspense about winning or losing today’s battle!
But now, the 15-pound long cannon is inherently more accurate than the 30-pound and 40-pound short cannon, and it is easier to aim and the rate of fire is much faster... In order to speed up the rate of fire, these cannons are also Expensive bronze cannon (copper has a high heat dissipation coefficient)! Moreover, because the 15-pound cannon is small and takes up less space, the number of equipment is also large.
On one side of the Yingtianfu level, 16 15-pound cannons were placed! The two Flying-class ships have 12 15-pound cannons on one side, the four Gunsei-class ships have 9 15-pound cannons on one side, and the four Sentosho-class ships have 5 15-pound cannons on one side. Heavy gun.
Therefore, there are a total of 96 15-pound guns on the left side of 11 Ming warships that can fire at the same time. Compared with the spectacular scenes of the Anglo-Dutch War, where hundreds of cannons fired at the same time, 96 cannons firing at the same time was nothing, but it still shocked Tropp and David Jones.
Why so many bombardment cannons? It's almost over a hundred...and it was fired from such a distance. How heavy is the bullet?
The first round of shelling seemed to have hit nothing. After all, the distance was quite far, and the fire was fired from a bumpy battleship. It was not easy to hit. However, some of the shells landed not far from the Sealand Provincial Council, and the shells caused a lot of thick water splashes.
Davy Jones was stunned again when he saw the splash - this was an 18-pounder cannon! At a distance of more than a thousand yards, how could the 18-pounder hit the Sealand Province's fender?
"Is it an 18-pounder?" Tropp laughed, "David, it turns out you are not a good teacher!"
Davy Jones shook his head and said, "That's not how I taught them...it's because they didn't learn well!"
"Okay, stop defending," Tropp said, "give the order to fire...it's time for the Chinese to experience the power of the 40-pound cannon!"
"Yes, Major General!" David Jones nodded and gave the order to fire.
However, before the first cannon of the Zealand Province was loaded, the 15-pound cannons of the Ming fleet fired again. The accuracy this time was much better than the last time! Only a muffled sound of "bang" was heard, and a 15-pound cannonball had hit the stern plate of the Zeeland Province!
